Kirk said that in at least one Lower Mainland elementary school where he was volunteering, there was the “mimicking of the gang behaviour in kids as young as Grade 5.”

And over the last two years, the task force has encountered structured gangs in which members are middle and secondary school students, Kirk said.

One such teen gang, which calls itself the Unknown Soldiers, has links to a Metro Vancouver adult criminal organization, Kirk said.

“They were generally middle-school or high-school aged. It had individuals in various Lower Mainland communities and that group was proven to be linked back to a known adult gang through an individual residing in Metro Vancouver,” Kirk said.

The group is still active, though police quickly tried to intervene to help some kids on the periphery, Kirk said, “to make sure they weren’t drawn into the lifestyle.”

Despite the murders of several teens and young adults involved in gangs over the last two years, and the incarceration of leaders of criminal organizations, some teens are still not getting the message.

And some are taking it beyond admiration, making conscious decisions to get involved in the lifestyle, Kirk said.

“What we do know is that there are groups of youth, not only in Metro Vancouver, but in other communities, that we can prove have formed a gang and that particular gang is heavily influenced by an adult who is engaged in the lifestyle and has ties to known gangs within the province,” he said.

The Gang Task Force, The Vancouver Sun and the CBC are sponsoring the Teens Against Gangs video contest for grades 8 to 12 to try to get the message out about the dangers of a criminal lifestyle.

“It is critical that we have peers talking to peers,” Kirk said. “The message is occasionally lost when we have adults speaking. But when we have peers — people their own age in the same environment as they are — speaking about the ills of being involved in gangs or organized crime, I think that is extremely beneficial.”

A similar TAG anti-gang poster contest held earlier this year attracted hundreds of entries from around the province.

More important than anything was the discussion the contest sparked among teens, Kirk said.

“We have certainly come to a crossroads. It is really now up to the peers of individuals that are at risk or certainly engaged in risky behaviour to tell their peers that in fact this is not the way to go,” he said.

“We still have these adults that are very much mired in the world of gangs and they are an influence whether directly or indirectly on younger generations and that is the issue here.”

He said teens are getting trapped in the “lifestyle either by either getting favours done for them or doing favours for others. It is the selling of the lifestyle and it is huge. Any way we can get the message out that in fact it is not glamorous.”

Abbotsford police have been at the forefront of anti-gang education after the high-profile murders of two teens last year who had marginal gang involvement.

The department launched a series of anti-gang posters and videos, did workshops for thousands of students and held community forums on gangs.

“It engaged the community and got it discussing the issues,” Const. Ian MacDonald said. “That is sort of the touchstone for people in our community — everybody talks about the issue of gang violence.”

And the education has paid off — gang violence is down in the Fraser Valley city.

“We are pleased at this point that the numbers are considerably down in terms of gang violence and homicides in the city. What is way up is the community’s discussion about those issues and trying to do what they can to do prevention,” MacDonald said.

Abbotsford police have had calls from across North America from police forces and community groups who want to use their posters and videos.

“There is an appetite for the message and that appetite appears to be cross-continent, not just Lower Mainland or in the province,” MacDonald said.

Participants in the TAG video contest are invited to create and submit a 30-second video by Jan. 31, 2011. Three winners will get $1,000 cash prizes and the person with the most-viewed online video will take home $250.